The Official Average Boy Podcast

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Jesse: Welcome to episode 131 of the Official Average Boy Podcast. I'm Jesse from Focus on the Family Clubhouse Magazine.

Bob Smiley: And I'm Bob Smiley, AKA—wait, Jesse, I tried naan last week. Remember when we talked about naan a few episodes ago? That bread thing from the country of Indiana?

Jesse: You probably mean India. I do remember our conversation because I'm a naan-fan. But don't you want to introduce yourself first and then we can talk about your thoughts on foreign flatbreads?

Bob Smiley: There's nothing really to talk about. I tried it and I loved it. I just thought the listeners should know naan is amazing.

Jesse: So, would you say that you're a naan-believer?

Bob Smiley: Anyway, I'm Bob Smiley, AKA Average Boy, AKA the publicly, prayerfully, pushy, playful, powerful prince of painting parties. Come on, Bob. Naan-believer. That's funny because of the bread's name.

Jesse: We got it. Did you hear all those cricket sounds?

Bob Smiley: They haven't added sound effects yet to this episode. Hey, Producer Guy, can you make a note to add some crickets after Jesse's naan-non joke earlier?

Producer Guy: Already noted.

Bob Smiley: Thanks. Plus, Jesse, I'm definitely not a non-believer. I'm a Christian, so I believe in Jesus.

Jesse: I get it. Let's forget about the Indian bread you tried and let's get to the meat of this episode.

Bob Smiley: I had meat too. I think the butter chicken was my favorite, but that lamb vindaloo was so good. Plus, vindaloo is fun to say. In fact, all our listeners should say vindaloo right now. See, it feels good, right? Plus, you know how much I already like mutton.

Jesse: That's true. Wow, you're full of callbacks today. But let's get on with today's story. You said that you're a powerful prince of painting parties.

Bob Smiley: I did. Although I guess it wasn't really a party. It was just me and my dad. For a little bit, it was just me by myself.

Jesse: Kind of like that junior high dance you went to.

Bob Smiley: Yeah, I guess it was. Anyway, Dad and I painted my room and we had a blast.

Jesse: Would your dad also agree with you that it was a blast?

Bob Smiley: He would totally agree.

Jesse: Should we call him to check?

Bob Smiley: That's probably not the best idea.

Jesse: Why is that?

Bob Smiley: He's probably still washing paint out of his hair. Maybe give him a couple of months of hair growth before you check in with him on that one.

Jesse: Okay, now I really want to hear the story.

Bob Smiley: Good, because I really want to tell it. It all started when I got home from playing basketball. Jesse, I had really dominated the court that day. I owned the game. I was in the zone. No one could guard me.

Jesse: Hang on. I thought you were volunteering at your church daycare that week by playing games with five-year-olds.

Bob Smiley: Yeah, and that day we played basketball. What's your point?

Jesse: No point, I guess. Just clarifying.

Bob Smiley: Well, my point was that I scored a lot of points. I scored a lot of points and was having an amazing day. I was having an amazing day until I got home.

Jesse: Home from beating a bunch of five-year-olds at basketball.

Bob Smiley: There were four six-year-olds. Jesse, I feel like you're focusing on the wrong thing here.

Jesse: Okay, please continue.

Bob Smiley: So I walked into my room and was instantly shocked.

Jesse: From what? Let me guess. The smell. Are you still putting your dirty clothes under your bed instead of in the laundry room like your mom asked you to do?

Bob Smiley: No. I'm not putting my dirty clothes under my bed.

Jesse: Good because we talked about that in a past episode and what a bad habit it was. If you remember, we learned that it was bad—

Bob Smiley: I'm putting them under my brother's bed. Here's the deal. My brother's room is way closer to the laundry room. That's kind of progress, right? Things don't change overnight.

Actually, now that I say that, I guess the weather does. Once I went to sleep and I woke up and it snowed. Jesse, it snowed in Texas. Can you believe it?

Jesse: Bob, we've talked about that before too and I think we're getting way off track. Although, it's good that you didn't own a tiger when it was snowing.

Bob Smiley: Yeah. Wait, why is that? Hang on. Is this a Jesse joke?

Jesse: Because you would have gotten frostbite.

Bob Smiley: I knew it. Wait, you know, it's a good thing I'm not a tightrope walker.

Jesse: Why is that?

Bob Smiley: Because then the tiger would have gotten a well-balanced meal.

Jesse: That's shockingly funny. Sort of like your room, right?

Bob Smiley: Shockingly, yeah. My room. Thanks for getting me back on track. So I walked into my room and it was painted bright pink. Bright pink. Every wall. Just a big old bright pink room.

Jesse: Like my favorite paddle game.

Bob Smiley: Favorite paddle game?

Jesse: Yeah, pink-pong.

Bob Smiley: Anyway, before I could even turn around, my mom appeared behind me. That's one of her superpowers, you know.

Jesse: What do you mean?

Bob Smiley: My mom can just appear out of nowhere at any time. Like, say Billy is spending the night and he's sneaking into the kitchen at 2:00 AM to get some cookies even though he knows he's not supposed to. My mom will just appear from behind the pantry door and scare Billy.

Jesse: Nice save.

Bob Smiley: As I was staring at the bright pink walls, Mom did her superpower thing by appearing right behind me. Then she shouted, "Before you say anything, it was supposed to be red, not pink!"

Jesse: That would be very startling.

Bob Smiley: It made me jump even deeper into my disgustingly bright pink room. Then I said, "Mom, how red was it supposed to be?" And Mom said, "About the color your face is right now." Jesse, my face was super red.

Jesse: I'm sure it was.

Bob Smiley: Then Mom said, "Bob, we were trying to surprise you. I'm so sorry, but we'll fix it."

Jesse: I'm sure you were surprised.

Bob Smiley: Shocked, Jesse. Not surprised. I was shocked. A surprise is a good thing. Like seeing your mom put ice cream in the shopping cart or seeing it start to rain outside right before your dad asks you to mow or hearing a statewide news report that they're recalling all broccoli in Texas. But come on, a pink room? A pink room is a shock. That's not a surprise.

Jesse: I get it. But it sounds like your parents had good intentions.

Bob Smiley: That part is true. I've actually been wanting to paint my room red for a while now and I kept asking them if we could change it. You make a good point. I guess it could have been a really good surprise.

Jesse: That kind of reminds me of a proverb. Let me pull it up here. Proverbs 16:2 says, "All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit." God sees our true motive behind things and it sounds like your parents had true motives to surprise you.

Bob Smiley: That's true. I could tell Mom was super disappointed.

Jesse: So, how pink did your room end up being? And how come your parents didn't just stop painting it when they saw how pink it was?

Bob Smiley: That's a great question. And I know it's a great question because that's the question I asked them.

Jesse: Nice. I see what you did there.

Bob Smiley: Turns out while they were painting it, it looked red. But the walls started soaking it in and it started fading a little bit. An hour later, they went in to check on it and all the walls had faded to a big bright pink.

Jesse: I know some cheaper paints can do that. Do you know what kind of paint they used?

Bob Smiley: Another great question. That's exactly what I asked my dad.

Jesse: And what did he say?

Bob Smiley: First, I had to wait for him to stop laughing. But then he told me it was some discounted paint. That's what made him decide to paint my room in the first place. He said it was super cheap, but he thought he was getting a good deal from a reputable paint dealership.

Jesse: So did your dad try to return the extra paint or get a refund?

Bob Smiley: Kind of. He tried, but the van wasn't in the parking lot when he went to complain.

Jesse: He bought it from a guy in a van? That can't be true. I've had guys in a van offer to sell me some speakers as I was driving down the road. Once I even bought steaks from a couple of guys selling them from a truck, but I've never bought paint from a van.

Bob Smiley: I don't know if it was true or not. I can never tell when my dad is joking. He is always exaggerating his stories.

Jesse: I know someone that does that at least twice a month.

Bob Smiley: Twice a month. That's weird that you keep track of how many—hang on. We do two episodes a month. Jesse, are you saying I exaggerate my stories?

Jesse: Do you want to go back and listen to 130 examples?

Bob Smiley: Kind of. Our episodes are really fun.

Jesse: I agree. But before you start saying that's why they gave us an award—

Bob Smiley: Gave me an award!

Jesse: All right, let's get back to the pink room and the painting party. This is interesting to me because I just recently had to take my walrus to the paint store.

Bob Smiley: What? Why would you take a walrus to a paint store?

Jesse: He wanted to do ark, ark, ark, ark. Anyway, I had to do something. I couldn't let Billy or any of my other friends see my room like this. Jesse, it looked like a cotton candy machine exploded all over my walls. But that's when Dad walked in.

Jesse: And saved the day.

Bob Smiley: Not really. Dad told me not to worry about the walls. He said he'd buy some more paint, not from a van this time, and we would fix it together.

Jesse: Sounds like he was saving the day.

Bob Smiley: Kind of, but he wasn't trying to save the day on that day.

Jesse: I'm confused.

Bob Smiley: Well, he said he would get some more paint when we went to church on Sunday. Jesse, that was three days away. I wanted him to save that day, not save a day three days away. But then I had a brilliant brain burst and ended up saving the day that day. Does that make sense now?

Jesse: Actually, as confusing as that sentence was, I think I know exactly what you're saying. You came up with an idea to fix your room right then instead of waiting three days.

Bob Smiley: My first idea wasn't that great. My first idea was to see how many red magic markers I had. But then I remembered the black paint that I had out in the lawnmower shed leftover from when I wanted to paint Billy's motorcycle. Jesse, do you remember when I was going to paint Billy's motorcycle?

Jesse: I actually do. You wrote about it in your book, Devotions for Super Average Kids Book 1, if I remember correctly.

Bob Smiley: Wow, your brain is really firing on—it's firing on all those things that make your brain fire.

Jesse: Cylinders?

Bob Smiley: Come on, it's not silly. That's a real saying.

Jesse: I know. The saying is firing on all cylinders. You know what, let's just keep going.

Bob Smiley: So anyway, like I said, I wrote about it in my first book. Hopefully, all the listeners have read it by now. If you're not, you're four books behind. Hang on, Jesse, should we pause to give listeners who haven't read it time to read the book?

Jesse: I think we can just continue and we can leave the pausing up to the individual listener.

Bob Smiley: Okay, cool. So basically, I got this huge bucket of black paint.

Jesse: Hang on. I always meant to ask you, but how did you get this huge bucket of black paint?

Bob Smiley: That's not important right now. But it was a lot. It was a lot of black paint, like a giant tub.

Jesse: Okay, and it was to paint Billy's motorcycle. So did you guys ever get his bike up and running?

Bob Smiley: Yes and no.

Jesse: Yes and no?

Bob Smiley: Yeah, we got it up by putting the kickstand back on and setting it up, but no, we never got it running. Well, we did get it running down the hill on Billy's street one time, but that didn't turn out so well.

Jesse: I can't imagine how. A motorcycle careening unmanned down a hill sounds sort of dangerous. So how did you get it to stop?

Bob Smiley: Oh, we mailed it in.

Jesse: Mailing it in means you didn't try very hard.

Bob Smiley: Oh, we tried hard to stop it by accidentally running into a mailbox.

Jesse: Did you and Billy at least fix the mailbox after?

Bob Smiley: Of course, we did. We're very neighborly. And that's why I still had all that paint. Billy didn't want to push the motorbike over to my house and I couldn't carry the paint over to his house, so now that I'm thinking about it, once again, not being too muscular saved the day.

Jesse: That's a very positive way to look at it, I guess.

Bob Smiley: So I really wanted my room painted red, but black would be super cool as well. And, of course, anything would be better than what it looked like right then. Right then it looked like a unicorn got sick on my wall.

Jesse: AB, let's not get too graphic.

Bob Smiley: Sorry. Anyway, I pitched the idea to my parents and my dad was instantly on board. In fact, he got really excited. I think mostly because it didn't involve him spending more money on paint.

Jesse: Probably so.

Bob Smiley: So my brother and I went to get the paint once Brian, of course, was done laughing at my room. Dad brought the ladder and drop cloths back in and my mom grabbed all the brushes and we were ready.

Jesse: Sounds like a fun family project.

Bob Smiley: Sort of. Turns out my brother couldn't stop laughing at my room, so Mom took him over to the park to annoy other people.

Jesse: AB!

Bob Smiley: Sorry. Mom took my brother to the park to play.

Jesse: Much better.

Bob Smiley: This left Dad and me. Jesse, we had so much fun.

Jesse: I thought you said your dad ended up with paint in his hair.

Bob Smiley: My dad and I had so much fun for a little bit.

Jesse: Okay, let's keep this paint story rolling because he used a roller to paint.

Bob Smiley: Come on, Jesse, that paint joke needs another coat. But we got two of the walls painted and that's when things started kind of getting dark.

Jesse: The paint spilled?

Bob Smiley: No, the black paint made the room darker. It was awesome.

Jesse: Okay, but then how did your dad get paint in his hair?

Bob Smiley: You really seem focused on that part of the story. The takeaway from this is we worked together to solve a problem and we had fun doing it. But our listeners should know that you should never set a bowl of paint on the top step of a ladder, especially if your dad is painting just below it.

Jesse: Did he stand up and then hit the paint bowl with his head?

Bob Smiley: Yeah, that's what happened. He totally did that.

Jesse: AB, I do have your dad's cell phone number.

Bob Smiley: Okay, so two things our listeners should learn from today's episode. One, don't set a bowl of paint on the top of a ladder, and B, always step out of the room if you're going to practice spinning a basketball on your finger.

Jesse: Okay, so that's what happened.

Bob Smiley: I was walking over to the last wall that needed to be painted when I saw my basketball laying in the middle of the room, so naturally, I needed to show my dad how good I'd gotten at spinning it on my finger.

Jesse: Naturally.

Bob Smiley: But Dad wouldn't look up, so I started walking over closer to him. Now that I'm saying all this, I think Dad is really the one that we should blame.

Jesse: AB, please tell me you're not trying to blame your dad for this.

Bob Smiley: No, that's not what I was saying. I was going to say Dad is really to be credited for letting me paint my room. Oh, and some of my furniture as it turns out.

Jesse: So, I'm guessing the basketball flew off your finger, hit the ladder, and the black paint poured all over your dad's head.

Bob Smiley: The positive spin is he did look 20 years younger. No more gray hairs for him and no more basketball for me. But the whole point of the story is to encourage people not to stress out when something doesn't turn out like you hoped it would. My room turned out pink, but instead of stressing about it or getting mad, we just worked together to fix the problem.

Jesse: Actually, that does make a really good point.

Bob Smiley: Thanks. And before our Producer Guy starts pounding on the glass—I see you over there, pointing at your watch—let's do a listener comment real quick. I like this joke that Henry sent us. Henry wrote, "Hi, I have a joke. What did the mushroom say to the other mushroom? You're a fun-guy."

Jesse: That's a good joke.

Bob Smiley: I agree. And he also said, "I love your podcast. Bye." I'm assuming he said bye so he could go give us super high ratings and tell everyone else about our podcast.

Jesse: Well, I have to say, AB, you're a fun guy as well, and thanks for sharing another adventure with us today. But unfortunately, as you can hear, we're at the end of today's Official Average Boy Podcast, a presentation of Focus on the Family.

If you haven't heard our other episodes, you can go back and listen to them all at averageboypodcast.com. And parents, while you're at that website, click on the parents page to subscribe to Focus on the Family Clubhouse Magazine. This award-winning magazine features an award-winning and humorous Adventures of Average Boy story every month.

Bob Smiley: And just below the Clubhouse Magazine sign-up link, parents can also click on the link to buy my devotion books: Devotions for Super Average Kids Books 1 and 2, or my two new books: Average Boy's Above Average Year and Average Boy's Above Average Summer. All four books are filled with lots of laughs, encouragement, and most importantly, ways to grow closer to God.

Jesse: Also, we love hearing from our listeners. So if you want to leave us a voicemail or a comment, just click the link in the show notes and ask a question or just leave a comment. But be sure to get your parents' permission before because we might use your question or comment on a future episode.

We always appreciate the feedback we get. And don't forget, if you're listening on Spotify, leave a comment, rating, and now you can vote in our new show poll. So we'll have some of the new ones up there with each episode.

Bob Smiley: That sounds fun. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. I'm Bob.

Jesse: And I'm Jesse telling you, don't be average.

Bob Smiley: Be super average.